Marketing, advertising & media intelligence

These days, we use our mobile devices for many aspects of life: for social connections, as a camera, a map, a video recorder, entertainment, guitar tuning. You name it, your phone can probably do it. And now, ASB is inviting more Kiwis to add payment to the list of things they do with their phones via a short clip developed by Saatchi & Saatchi.

The ad features a bunch of mobile screens side-by-side relaying all the different things we do with our mobile devices like talking, tweeting, liking, snapping and making videos.

It then details how ASB customers can also use their Android phones to pay for goods by paywaving through the ASB Virtual app.

Consumer NZ reported in November last year that contactless payments made up 15 percent of point-of-sale transactions and 10 percent of point-of-sale spend

However, recently mobile wallet Semble pulled the plug on its contactless payment saying mobile payment services hadn’t had the speed of uptake and usage it expected.

“These include low levels of consumer awareness of mobile payments and relatively low volumes of contactless terminals, although contactless transactions in general are growing,” Semble chief executive Rob Ellis said.

Only about 25 to 30 percent of all payment terminals in New Zealand have contactless capabilities. Outside of major retailers such as supermarkets, petrol stations and big box retailers, the usage numbers are low. Ellis said this was a constraint in the growth of the business.

The app was not compatible with iPhones, which closed off a significant part of the market.

Semble and its key stakeholders, 2degrees, Spark, Vodafone, ASB and BNZ jointly undertook the review and agreed to discontinue Semble’s current payment service.

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So they're taking a leaf out of Countdown's book and essentially putting products on price lockdown? Meh. Can't even remember the last time I went into a Warehouse but the latest ads with yellow backgrounds are frankly a very silly ...

I have been enjoying paperboy. At 50 years of age, I am not of the demographic target, but I still have a pulse. The harbour news went from dull to dead boring once the oldtimer who wrote the opinions section ...

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